If asked to enumerate their human rights, I doubt that most Americans would mention the right to control their dead. This is not because there is no such right; rather, the entitlement is so basic and universally extended that it is hardly recognized as a "right" by most people. But suppose America were occupied by a foreign invader whose scientists pillaged our cemeteries and shipped our ancestors' remains home for research. I have little doubt that most Americans would regard this as a fundamental violation of human rights and dignity.

The United States, of course, allowed this to happen to its indigenous people. Although our government acknowledged almost every other group's spiritual and legal claim to their dead, for much of American history it did not extend this basic human entitlement to Native Americans. Huge quantities of their ancestral remains and sacred objects were shipped to research institutions such as UC Berkeley's Hearst Museum, which houses the second largest such collection in the nation. In 1990, Congress tried to redress the injustice by passing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which requires museums to repatriate human remains and sacred objects to tribes.

The law has had mixed success. Congress essentially left the details of NAGPRA administration to the institutions that controlled the collections, and although many museums have been conscientious, many have not. Unfortunately, NAGPRA fails to take sufficient account of the inherent conflict between museums' institutional and research interests and their obligations under the law. Museums quite naturally want to keep their collections intact. This is especially true of museums run by scientists who conduct research on human remains, often in violation of Native American religious beliefs. The social utility of this research, by the way, is largely intellectual. Although academic archaeology is a worthy and respected subject, it won't do much to cure disease, prevent global warming or solve other problems of vital consequence for human life. In this sense, it is a luxury endeavor with a limited audience, and ought not to take precedence over human rights.

Many Native Americans believe that some scientists, particularly at the Hearst and other UC museums, are extremely hostile to NAGPRA and deliberately frustrate tribal claims. One way scientists have done this is to exploit basic NAGPRA classifications. The law required that museums file inventories of their Native American collections by 1995, identifying items as either "culturally affiliated" or "culturally unidentifiable." Museums had to repatriate remains and artifacts to affiliated tribes, but for the indefinite future, they were allowed to keep culturally unidentifiable items. It is not surprising that some museums classified large portions of their collections as culturally unidentifiable.

For example, the Hearst Museum, which did not complete its inventory until 2000, classified more than 80 percent of its collection as culturally unidentifiable. Tribes can challenge this classification, but only on a "case by case" basis. Tribes essentially have to do all of the research and then place their evidence before "repatriation committees." In the UC system, they first have to convince a campus committee and then a systemwide committee. These committees are dominated by scientists. For instance, the University of California Office of the President committee is composed of five archaeologists, one attorney and two Native Americans.

Within this context, a recent decision by Berkeley scientists and administrators is very troubling. The UC Berkeley vice chancellor of research, herself a scientist, commissioned a review of Hearst NAGPRA services by two archaeologists, both of whom sit on the UCOP committee. The vice chancellor excluded Native Americans. The archaeologists recommended eliminating the NAGPRA unit, which included three Native Americans who worked independently of museum scientists. This unit offered comprehensive research and consultation that helped tribes overcome a stacked process. The university has now removed all Native Americans from positions of authority over NAGPRA and has essentially subordinated NAGPRA interests to the goals of research scientists. It appears that once again, a basic human right of Native Americans has been trumped by a luxury science. It is time for the UC Regents to intervene.